In an interview that aired last night (Oct. 17) on E!, her husband Bill Rancic said, “I think she was a lot stronger than I thought. Up until this morning, any time she said the word ‘cancer’ she would start crying.” I’m sure he will do exactly what the husband in McBride’s song does: “When you need to cry, I swear that I’ll be there to dry your eyes.”

Rancic’s tumor was found during a recent mammogram. She will have surgery this week, followed up with six weeks of radiation.

Last week, when I was on the train with McBride, I asked her about the song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”
and she told me it’s those husbands out there who make it such a powerful song. “It is emotional. But for me, when people say, ‘How do you sing the song without crying,’ I think that it’s because it’s so hopeful. It’s not sad,” she said.

As for the Bill Rancics of the world, McBride told me, “I love singing those words for that man. When I really, really let those words sink in, those things that he says to her, I get goosebumps from head to toe. Total body chills.”